


Why Do I Keep Falling?

by TheShortestManOnEarth



Series: Glimmadora Week 3.0 2020 [6]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Companion piece to "To Live", F/F, Fluff, Glimadora Week 2020, Glimadora Week 3.0, Relationship Development, Some hurt/comfort, Special occasions prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28007427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShortestManOnEarth/pseuds/TheShortestManOnEarth
Summary: Glimmadora Week 3 Day 6: Special Occasions/Holidays.Coming to terms with emotions is hard enough on its own, but it's even more difficult when you're not supposed to have them. The Horde had strict rules about relationships, that is to say: they weren't allowed.Falling in love wasn't allowed, it wasn't supposed to happen. So why did Adora keep falling in love with her best friend? And when would it stop? More importantly, did Adora want it to?This is a companion piece/prequel of sorts to my other story "To Live".
Relationships: Adora & Glimmer (She-Ra), Adora/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Series: Glimmadora Week 3.0 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040798
Comments: 10
Kudos: 17





	Why Do I Keep Falling?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Say_Anything](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Say_Anything/gifts).



> Hi All! 
> 
> Sorry my submissions are taking so long. The art piece I'm working on for Day 3 has taken me a while to complete so I've been switching between the final prompts and the artwork. It's almost done though and I'll have that up tomorrow with the final fic (plus bonus artwork for that as well). 
> 
> I had this story idea ever since I posted "To Live" and got the idea from SayAnything's comment about developing Adora's character through smaller events and moments and how we didn't get enough of that in the actual show. So SayAnything, this one is for you! 
> 
> Let me know what you think!

If there was one thing that Adora could say made her feel uncomfortable or uneasy, it was not having the answer to something. She prided herself on knowing how and when to act. The Horde didn’t allow for second guessing or mistakes. In the words of one of her early training officers: “Mistakes are for the dead, Cadets. If you second guess yourself, your enemy will take advantage of it and they _will_ kill you.” Personal thoughts and feelings didn’t have a time or place on the battlefield. So, when she arrived in Bright Moon, where everyone, especially her best friends wore their feelings on their sleeves, confusion was the emotion of the hour for Adora. 

There were so many rules in Bright Moon, some were common knowledge, and it was a staggering adjustment to know how to react when there wasn’t a rulebook or an officer screaming at her to pack her feelings up and focus. The first week Adora found herself constantly asking Bow and Glimmer questions. 

“So, when do you eat? I don’t know when we’re supposed to take our meals.” Adora was sure that asking was the right thing. How else would she know how to do things right? 

“Um, you can eat whenever you’re hungry.” Bow gave her a warm smile, but when he saw her shifting expression between discomfort and a hint of confusion as she fidgeted in her chair, he placed a hand on her shoulder. He hadn’t forgotten that Adora had needed someone to sleep with her when she first arrived. “We can eat together if it’ll make you more comfortable, Adora.” 

The blonde breathed, feeling the air return to her chest, and releasing the tension she hadn’t known she’d kept inside. It wasn’t easy, but Adora managed, with help, to learn what the patterns of Bright Moon’s daily life were. Bow was always ready with information and seemed to have a knack for sensing when Adora was feeling lost. She was grateful for her friend. But he, like everyone else in her new home, was used to something she didn’t have the words to describe. 

The Horde was many things to Adora and Catra. In its own warped sense, it was the only family they’d known for seventeen, almost eighteen years. Within the confines of the Fright Zone’s own set of both spoken and unspoken rules was one that Adora immediately couldn’t piece together with her conflicting experiences in Bright Moon. Among the main rules the Horde had and advised, one was about controlling any feelings that were natural responses to harsh conditions. If something exploded, the natural response would be to jump away or run. Horde soldiers were trained to run towards the chaos and not away from it. Not all of them followed that protocol, but Adora did. 

When her sense of self was tied to the Horde, it was hard to know how to process feelings that weren’t related to work or to the war she was fighting. The Horde had strict rules about having certain kinds of relationships: that is to say, they weren’t allowed. If anyone showed that they cared about one person more than the mission, they were promptly reprimanded. No one gave her the precise words at the time, but in retrospect Adora would have said that that falling in love wasn’t allowed. More importantly it wasn’t _supposed_ to happen. The closest thing Adora had maybe felt at any point was caring about Catra. But even that wasn’t allowed to grow and evolve. 

The first time that Glimmer held out the sword for Adora to take back, saying, “I should have given it back to you at the temple,” and cried, looking vulnerable, Adora didn’t know what to do. Something dormant in her woke up in that moment. All she wanted was to make sure Glimmer never cried ever again. If Adora had to become a Princess, the very thing she’d been taught to hate, to ensure that Glimmer could continue to smile, then she would pledge herself to desertion. Hate and manipulation through propaganda gave her no discernable tools to read into what a genuine form of love looked like. 

Glimmer always said what she felt. Or rather, in many cases, she showed the blonde just how much she cared on a regular basis. A casual hand on the arm, a quick reassuring smile, or one of those lingering hugs that the pink haired Princess seemed all too fond of giving Adora. It was nice, it was soothing, and it was overwhelmingly unrelated to the pledge to Bright Moon that Adora had made as She-Ra. Somehow promising herself to the kingdom felt like the oath she’d sworn to the Horde: to fight to the death for it, her own life be damned. 

Until she’d come to Bright Moon, Adora had only known what she wasn’t supposed to like or do. Everything was about what she couldn’t do in the Horde. She couldn’t disobey orders, she couldn’t wake up when she wanted to, she couldn’t skip training, and she couldn’t forget that only Hordak’s wants mattered. She knew him solely by name most of her life, but when she finally met him in person it was painfully obvious just how little her life weighed in his eyes. 

_“I could not have lied to you about who you are. Because I have never known nor cared about someone as inconsequential as you.”_

Each time Glimmer approached or reached out to Adora, the blonde couldn’t help but think about those words and the others she’d been fed as a steady diet of diminishing self-worth. She wasn’t told she could care about someone more than the mission, not even herself. 

Glimmer had come into the blonde’s life and for the first time Adora felt like she had a reason to keep fighting that had nothing to do with her pledge to Bright Moon, the Rebellion, or even Queen Angella. Glimmer’s excitement was enough to keep Adora on a cloudy high for days. While Angella fretted and expressed her concern at Glimmer’s antics, Adora saw a genuine dedication that was free of the same strings that had made Adora a puppet of the Horde. Glimmer couldn’t be tied down or sit still. Hoping with awestruck uncertainty that Glimmer might one day turn that same passion on the blonde, Adora couldn’t fathom that her best friend saw her on the same level as the higher mission. Glimmer was a princess, the heir to the throne, she had a higher calling. All Adora could hope was to make sure the Sword of Protection was enough to earn a second glance. 

To her surprise Adora earned more than that over time. Even when she wasn’t fighting, when she was simply sitting in her room, Glimmer came looking for the other girl, eyes wide with excitement and would start rambling on about her latest ideas for the Rebellion. Some days Glimmer didn’t even bring up the Horde. At first it felt like a giant oversight, one worth reprimanding or pointing out for fixing. But Glimmer never seemed concerned on the days when they just were two teens sharing stories from their respective days. 

“Oh, I brought you something,” Glimmer said, pulling a small, wrapped object from her pocket and handed it to Adora. The two were once again spending the afternoon in Glimmer’s room. Since the war had ended most of their debrief sessions or hangouts took place in Glimmer’s room. It seemed fitting to Adora somehow that she be in the new Queen’s room so that when, no, _if_ , Glimmer needed the warrior, Adora could be there instantly. The blonde watched, curious as the pink haired girl held out the object. It was wrapped in light baking parchment and when Adora unwrapped it she saw it was a small piece of rich bread with icing on top. 

“I know you like sweets, so I took some of the leftover bread from today for you.” Glimmer said, her cheeks coloring a little with a blush and a sheepish smile crept onto her lips. Adora loved the multitudes of flavors that Bright Moon offered in its cooking and confectionaries. It was unique to whoever made it. There was no plan, prediction, or reason to it, except for the recipes, but even though were reflective of whoever was cooking. 

Even after all the time that had passed in her time in Bright Moon, it was still not clear to Adora why she couldn’t stop herself from sinking into a deep and uncharted sea of emotions when it came to her best friend. Every day it felt like she was falling beyond recognition of her sense of self. There were days when her mind wasn’t her own, her heartbeat thirsting for the moments when Glimmer’s hand stretched out and yanked Adora out of the water. The warmth the Queen wrought with just a simple gesture was scorching. Adora wanted more. 

Why did she keep falling in love with her best friend? In the moments when Adora could withdraw the stares, the returned smiles, and the gifts that Adora longed to give to the Queen, the blonde didn’t believe she had anything equal to what Glimmer had given so freely. What could be equal to the home Glimmer had provided for Adora? What could mean as much as the ways in which Glimmer cared for Adora more than the blonde had ever done for herself until now? How could she repay the ways in which Glimmer had given Adora a reason to better her life and her ways for own sake as well as those of Bright Moon? 

Every time Glimmer called Adora to action, it was a triumphant battle cry, a roar to send the Horde scrambling for the hills, and the feeling didn’t die when they went to sleep the way it had in the Horde. While it left the Horde in terrified shambles, it left Adora wide awake and unsure of how to stop these feelings from standing in the way of her mission. Adrenaline highs were normal in the Horde, especially when their fights were on verge of victory. Glimmer’s sheer presence gave Adora a victory high. It was exhilarating and if the blonde were honest, it terrified her. Adora couldn’t stop it and as time went on, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. 

Before there were officers, other soldiers, and the weight of the Horde’s agenda that built a wall between Adora and her personal desires. Now she had none. As Glimmer slowly grew more affectionate, Adora in turn let herself slip further and further down the hole of emotional freefall. There was no foothold, no signposts, and no one to tell her to stop before she took the plunge. Just when she thought someone would step in or when she thought Glimmer would pull away or tell her to focus on the bigger picture, the then Princess of Bright Moon and now Queen, instead continually eroded Adora’s willpower to hide just how far down she was. 

It was a long way gone from where she’d started, a Horde soldier, tackled and apprehended by Princess Glimmer, the peak of humiliation. Adora had just been promoted. Somehow it felt like she should have been angry at Glimmer for questioning the only home she’d ever known or at least resisted more. Adora had come back though to save Glimmer, helping to carry her away from the mess the Horde had made. By all rights it was Adora’s mess too. But Glimmer was the one who apologized for her staunch belief that the Horde, who had destroyed so much of what she loved, was evil. 

_“I’m the Horde soldier. How do you know you can trust me?”_

So why did Glimmer keep drawing Adora in? After everything that the Horde had done to make it so Adora couldn’t send or receive the love she slowly realized she’d been missing and craving, Glimmer was still here. No matter how many times Adora’s past threatened to destroy the world as they knew it, Glimmer stayed. She was there when the warrior had been manipulated by Shadow Weaver at Mystacor, and when Adora’s memory was about to be wiped Glimmer’s enraged passion was strong enough to break magical bonds. It was enough to make the blonde’s heart and legs give way. All she wanted was to fall at Glimmer’s feet and let the emotions roll away any remaining semblance of reason. 

“Adora?” Glimmer’s eyes widened in horror as those blue eyes filled with tears. “Hey, what’s wrong? Did I…” Before the Queen could finish her thought Adora plowed forward with her burning question as she wiped her eyes. She shook her head to dismiss any concerns. Where did she even begin when she’d been sitting on the feelings since the two had first met years ago. They’d lived a million lifetimes it seemed in just a few short years. Adora continued to struggle with finding the words and the other, as if pulled by gravity, fell in beside the blonde on the bench. 

“Sorry,” Adora sniffed. “I’ve got something I need to say but I have no idea how to say it.” She paused. “Do you ever feel like you’re in over your head?” 

Glimmer sighed and blew a long sigh. “All the time. Being Queen, it’s just one giant learning curve. I barely keep my head above it all some days. I felt like I was in a dark hole for so long waiting for the hurt to go away.” Adora didn’t need to ask what the hurt was. It felt like yesterday Angella had accepted Adora’s allegiance to the Rebellion. Now she was a memory in the hearts of those who remembered her. Glimmer’s eyes refocused on Adora’s, covering the blonde’s hand with her own. “But you know what?” 

Adora shook her head. “You came down and pulled me up.” Glimmer’s other hand hesitated but then slipped behind Adora’s neck. The entire back of her neck tingled with a fluttering of questions without answers. “It feels like every time I need you, you’re just there, you know?” 

Adora blinked several times. Was it really that simple? “I… yeah, actually, I do. Realize it, I mean.” She was so far down that she wondered if Glimmer could hear how far gone the warrior’s heart was as it thudded in Adora’s ears. The Horde had wanted soldiers to fill its ranks. But it didn’t need Adora. Not specifically. 

They’d spent so long in practiced affection without the words they both could see as plainly as if it were written in the stars. The falling stopped for a moment, the warrior’s feet finding ground for what felt like the first time. “Whatever you have to say, Adora, it won’t change anything for us.” 

Adora stared at Glimmer. “Even if it’s about how I feel about you?” The Queen nodded, keeping a front of calm, but licked her lips nervously. 

“Even then.” Glimmer said quietly. She’d never asked Adora to be anything or anyone other than who she was. No matter how long Adora had spent floundering and struggling to figure out who she was, the pink haired girl was there, steadfast. 

“I keep feeling these things for you.” Adora said, barely looking the Queen in the eyes. Her feet were on the edge again, she could lose her balance and continue to fall forever until she hit the bottom. “The Horde didn’t want us to care for each other, not the ways you and everyone in Bright Moon does. So, I kept ignoring what I felt because I didn’t think you’d want me to…” 

“To what?” Glimmer urged gently. Adora lifted her gaze. 

“Fall in love with you.” The warrior said. “But I did. I am. We’ve been through so much at this point, it seems silly to even say it.” 

Glimmer’s eyes brightened and she let out a small laugh. “It’s not silly. I didn’t think you felt that way though.” 

Adora wasn’t sure if she should feel relieved or a little confused that Glimmer didn’t know how the warrior felt all this time. “I guess I wasn’t good at expressing it.” 

Glimmer shook her head. “That’s not it. It’s more like I thought that if you felt that way, you’d have said something by now. But I guess we both had that wrong.” A hesitant smile twitched its way onto Adora’s face. 

“Is that okay?” Adora asked. “To just fall like that?” Glimmer’s hands moved so they were both behind the blonde’s neck, pushing their foreheads together. 

“I like falling for you.” Glimmer said, a flicker of fire in her eyes that melted Adora’s heart. “Because I know that you’ll always be there waiting. I want to fall for you. I’ve got you if you’ve got me.” 

Adora couldn’t top those words if she tried. So, she just let her lips to fall into Glimmer’s and just as she had many times before the Queen was there to catch her hero before she hit the ground.


End file.
